1.
Just because I’m queer doesn’t mean I like you. I don’t look at you while you change. I’m not trying to be condescending. I’m not assuming anything. Listen to me. Just listen to me for one second. I don’t like having to explain myself. I don’t like how you’re looking at my clothing and my face and my identity and assuming that just because I’m a feminist, I’m a lesbian. Who wouldn’t want to be a feminist in a world where women still make seventy-seven cents to every male dollar? And don’t assume that I think I’m better than you because I go to The Spence School for girls, when I’m just trying to educate myself. I am everything. I am nothing. I am an enigma. I’m just me. Don't think for a second that you know me just because a glance at me reveals my BMI or my shoe size. Don't make correlations between the mutually exclusive and assume that just because I like girls, I stare at your hips when you walk or watch the way you bend down when you're spiking in volleyball. Okay, I'll admit that sometimes I do that...but it's not my fault your a** looks good in those spandex. Trust me, I do NOT like you.

2.
For some reason, all we talk about is love: unrequited love, obsessive love, lifelong love. Every time we talk about it, I feel sick. I have a picture of you in my head that won’t go away. Specifically, that one of you on the beach in Cape Cod with your hair framing your cheeks, and your skin pale with pink outlines of lips slightly open, expressive even though your eyes, the best part of you, are closed. Your lashes are doll-like, heavy on your thin face. Every time we talk about love, that picture haunts my mind and makes me unable to speak in English class, for fear of making the colors even more vivid.

3.
LGBTQQAIP? What does that acronym mean? How the f*** are there so many things to be? Why can’t we all be people because we’re all beautiful and love is blind and freedom is inherent and who are you to judge who I want to marry? Rick Santorum stands in front of us in an ugly sweater vest and says, “Americans, you shouldn’t be able to marry the people you love because I said so and the bible said so.” Hey, didn’t the bible also say that it was made for man and all that jazz so why don’t we take note and adjust the words in the great book and the dictionary doesn’t specify gender in its definition of marriage, so to hell with this civil union bulls***. If I want to marry a man or a woman or anyone else, who are you to tell me that my love isn’t worth a certificate in town hall? Are you going to shoot me down off the soapbox like you did to Harvey Milk and then use the Twinkie defense to justify a murder? I’m not afraid of you. I will be a martyr for my love because I believe in it. I believe in love. I believe in the love between two men, two women, a man and a woman, a mother and her son, a grandmother and her daughter. Who are you to say what is wrong and what is right when it comes to other peoples’ feelings? Who are you to tell me that my love is less than yours? Who are you?

4.
According to the National Institute of Health, depression may be described as feeling sad, blue, unhappy, miserable, or down in the dumps. Most of us feel this way at one time or another for short periods. True clinical depression is a mood disorder in which feelings of…wait. Hold on. Pause for a second. “Down in the dumps”? Are you f***ing kidding me? Oh, so I must have been down in the dumps when I missed a day of school because I stopped taking my Lexapro and had a freak out where I couldn’t stop crying. I must have been down in the dumps when I felt like I never wanted to leave my bed because the outside world was frightening. And I must have been down in the dumps when I lost all joy in the things I once found beautiful, like art and music and spending time with the people I love. Depression isn’t something that makes you feel sort of blue. Depression makes putting one foot in front of the other a chore because your feet drag and your mouth is numb, so you can’t call for help. And you feel cracked or broken and all you want to do is sleep for a million years or jump off a bridge and let the water eat you up. “If death is natural, then why not expedite the process?” That’s what I think about at night when I lie in bed and try to fall asleep. I say to myself, “You can study all you want, but you will never get an A on that test. You can give her all the chocolate in the world, but she will never love you. You can scream all you want, but they will never really hear you.” I sit on the floor of my bathroom sometimes at three in the morning, struggling to breathe and my lungs are broken and I swallow and swallow until I am nothing but a husk of my former self. That is not feeling blue or unhappy or down in the dumps. But you know what I do when I start to feel that way? I take deep a breath and remember that it gets better and I am alive and the odds of that happening in the first place were slim to none, so I should consider myself pretty damn lucky. So come on. Just keep going. You can do it. I believe in you and I love you. Right foot, left foot. You are almost there.

5.
Staple me to your collarbones so I can kiss them all day and forget how sharp they are. They can cut the inside of my mouth, but I will never stop finding them beautiful because you are a glimpse of perfection in a world of crap and you are the grumpy old man operating the lighthouse that makes a path for me in the dark ocean and you make me whole. I want to be a full person without you, but if you were to leave me, half of me would be gone and a body can’t function with only one atrium and one ventricle. It’s a catch 22, but I’m only 17, so could you just give me a hint, please?

6.
You have occupied my mind for two years, four months, and six days. This is day one where my thoughts have not turned to you. And the sun still rose this morning like it did when I thought of you. And the sun is setting right now outside my window like it did when I thought of you. And life goes on. I have pushed myself out of the black hole that has consumed me since March 4th, 2010. The black hole that pulled me in when I took you home, drunk, in a cab. I have shot myself like a comet, into the stars and into the sun. And that’s where I’ll be: gazing into the light of all the future has in store for me. A future where all that’s left for me to do is rise like a phoenix from the ashes without you making me feel like I cannot do it. And making me feel hopeless. Because I’m not hopeless. And I am not the disappointment that you called me that time I came to school high. And I am human, and I make mistakes. And that does not give you the right to judge me. It does not entitle you to tell me that I’m not doing it right. Because if you want to talk about morals, then my right is your left. And sweetie, to be perfectly honest, the weather’s nicer over here anyway. So I’m going to stay on the bright side of positivity and optimism. And no negativity that you try and send my way is going to keep me from being happy, from being healthy, from being loved, and from being alive. So you can lie there, in your bubble of criticism, contempt, and pessimism, and when you finally develop the maturity to admit that you treated me like s***; that the only reason you stuck headphones in my ears and asked me to listen to those songs was because you didn’t want to hear me talk; that all of those days you brought me down were undeserved; that all those conversations were over before they began because you assumed I would say the worst; that I did not deserve to be that unhappy for that long. When you can say all those things to my face and not hide behind the mask of a keyboard, then we can talk. But until then, good luck finding someone else to kiss the ground beneath your feet, and I promise you that years from now, treating me the way you did will be your biggest regret. Treating the one person who cared about you whole-heartedly and unconditionally like an ant you could crush under your size 10 volleyball cleats will make your heart ache the way mine did for so long. And the difference? You will live with that regret for the rest of your life, and my broken heart will have long since been mended.

7.
The other day, we went to a party, and she drank too much and needed someone to take her home. We needed to hail a cab but she was so drunk and had trouble just standing so she leaned on me and I kept waving my arms, and eventually I got some driver’s attention. So I helped her inside, and she sat next to me and kept leaning on me and then she handed me, like, eleven one-dollar bills and asked if that would be enough for the cab. And then I looked over at her and told her it would be and she was looking at me and her eyes were just so big and green and I…I just…I didn’t know what to do next. She was just looking at me and even though she was p*** drunk, she just looked so beautiful and perfect and I realized that she’d always looked so beautiful and perfect, but I was always looking at the ground because I was too scared that I’d realize it and that it would f*** everything up. But I stopped looking down and I looked at her and I realized that…well…I realized that I’d fallen in love with her. I felt angry because I didn’t want to feel that way about anyone. I didn’t want to make myself so vulnerable…especially to a girl. But I also felt so scared because I didn’t know what it would mean for our friendship…or I still don’t. But basically, every feeling you could possibly think of just bubbled up into my throat and I felt like I needed to vomit or pee or something. Part of me wanted to get as far away from her as possible…and then a bigger part of me wanted never to leave her side.